What "Peace" Really Means to Israelis

Two months ago I returned from a two-week family visit to Israel. Although I am an activist for Palestinian rights, I decided that this visit would be entirely private. Living for two weeks with my brother, his wife and their two little girls in their tiny apartment in a North Tel-Aviv suburb, gave me an opportunity to observe and see what daily life is like for Israelis at the moment.

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In family therapy there is an accepted principle that unless serious injustices are addressed, there cannot be real peace. Families that protect dark secrets always pay a heavy price. I watched Israeli intellectuals on TV engage in genuine discussion trying to analyse and understand why things are so bad in Israel. They raised every possible reason for the situation other than the most obvious one - Israel's history. It was excruciating to watch but also familiar. I have never seen a society so steeped in denial as Israeli society.

The entire spectrum of Israeli politics is in denial about Israel's history and this is why I do not have much faith in the Israeli Left. The handful that are not in denial like Dr Ilan Pappe who visited Australia last year, or Dr Uri Davis, exist outside this spectrum. Their research into the events of 1948 and the circumstances surrounding the birth of the state of Israel is not discussed on public television and is not in Israeli history books. The average Israeli does not even know who they are. Although published by reputable publishers like Cambridge University Press, Dr Pappe's books have so far been refused publication in Hebrew. The reason offered is that they lack academic merit.

The way most Israelis perceive their own history is as if they have always been the weak victim. The question of whether or not it was morally right or even wise to create a state at the expense of another people is never raised. No one in the mainstream questions the validity of democracy in a country where the right for citizenship is based on race (you can only become an Israeli citizen if you can prove that your mother is Jewish).

When Israelis engage in 'peace talks' it is important to understand their basic position. They have no real interest in a solution that goes to the core of their problem. They are like an individual who wants his or her symptoms to go away but refuses to do anything about their real causes. A wish 'to be left alone' is not much of a basis for a sustainable peace, at least not without another act of ethnic cleansing. Five million Palestinians are there to remind Israel of its past, and they are not going anywhere.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3548.shtml

I don't have to agree with the Likud party polcies to believe that.

Also, there are a number of Arab and/or Christian citizens of Israel, though citizenship rules do make it easier for Jews to become citizens.

I'm not saying it does not, I would like to understand why you believe it does.

what little it's worth is, "because they're there."

And they are the stronger party. And because the way things are going there will be no peace before one side or the other gives up its claims and surrenders.

So the Palestinians claim countless innocent lives, both Israelis and their own, in a struggle they cannot win.

Sad all around.

and the demographic impact is such that they have to continually shrink the size of their "state" to keep a Jewish majority.

Is that a sufficient answer?

However, Israel is there, and it will remain. Any solution must allow for its continued existence if it is to have a considerable chance of success.

to assume it will remain. The situation is much more precarious than that.

What currently threatens Israel's survival?

Nobody can tell me what would make up an "Isreali victory".

Could you?

is totally acceptable to the Palestinians, and can be maintained forever. I don't think the same applies the other way; people are losing patience.

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It has at least as much right to exist as any other "immigrant" nation populated by "Europeans" and exercising hegemony over non-European populations, e.g., the United States, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Australia, New Zealand, the former British and Dutch colonies of Africa.

It also has as much right to exist as any of the artificial countries created in the Middle East after WW1 by the victors. The WW1 victors rewarded their allies by "giving them" land and hegemony over local peoples -- all manner of war lords from the Arabian Peninsula were given nations by the Brits -- at the expense of, for example, the Kurds, or the Azeris.

I read somewhere - please don't ask for a cite -- I have been looking for it too --- that some academic ethnographer said that there are at least 1200-2000 "national identities" without nations. He based this on dialects, local twists and turns in religious practice, folk ways, family ties, clan ties, tribal ties, etc. A friend of mine who is from a little valley in Serbia said that - by the above model - Serbia should be two dozen countries (different dialects, different melodies for Serbian Orthodox hymns). Who knows how many countries the Czar's lands should be - or South Asia.

If you really push it - California should be at least five states, New York at least three (NYC below I-84, Niagara Frontier, everything else) Pennsylvania at least four states, etc. (trivia - we learned in HS that in Colonial Days Delaware was the slave county of Pennsylvania).

I would not object to an independent California - or at least an independent northern, coastal California :hi:

So - as much right and as little right as any other "artificial" nation.

What does the phrase even mean?

i have no idea.....its one of the surralistic ideas that we get to play with when we want to be "intellectuals"

me? i cant wait for the next ice age..it should be coming along any year now, add the "greenhouse effect" and we're in for an interesting period, then we can really argue about "rights" as we all sit on the pinnacle of mt everest trying to figure out 'who was there first".... (I guess since Mallory was the first to climb it, that gives you those rights....)

when an Arab crosses the 'border' between two Arab countries,
he/she thinks, this is all Arab land,
different gangsters in charge

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The Palestinian people have a right to exist in their own sovereign state?

And they have the "right" and the "opportunity" to develop a viable middle class, and the kind of high tech infrastructure that Muslim plurality (I think - well darn close) Singapore has.

I will go a step further - I think both Israel and the Jewish diaspora (including me) has a moral obligation to make that economy, middle class, and infrastructure happen.

I have worked with US educated, Egyptian educated, Saudi educated, and (yes) Israeli educated Palestinian engineers - and they are good.

My endocrinologist is a Palestinian -- and he is darn good. (He also told me about an Arab folk remedy for diabetes -- Cinnamon reduces "insulin resistance" - published research from Arab medical schools).

That right doesn't supersede the right of Palestinians.

for example ```you can only become an Israeli citizen if you can prove that your mother is Jewish```.....

...The law of return uses the same guidance that Hitler used in determining who is Jewish....ie: 1 grandparent....

all in all a buncha garbage.....

Wanna try discussing the article itself, which is much lengthier than the one sentence you tried to judge the entire thing on? Did you happen to notice the stuff she said about the fear of examining history? Got anything constructive to add to the discussion?

Violet...

...GLARING innacuracy as basic as that it tends to render the whole article as being suspect (to me anyway) and If it were in print I woulda turned the page....

..when it comes to many of the articles you've posted in this forum. So does this thing only apply when it's something you don't agree with?

Point these inaccuracies in my posts out to me.....

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I must say I share her pessimism, I don't see a lot of hope in
the present situation.

``The entire spectrum of Israeli politics is in denial about Israel's history and this is why I do not have much faith in the Israeli Left.``

Translation..those Neanderthals ,all of them do not understand,Only I amongst all the Jews in Israel ``get it``,not the Left not the Right only myself, with my brilliant psychology degree...Its lonely being the only Jew in Israel who ``gets it``...I better move to Australia now...

..instead of making up complete nonsense and trying to pass it off as the views of the author of the article and clumsily attacking her..

When you've actually read the article and have something constructive to say about the article, I'll be the first here to praise you for yr efforts...

Violet...

I have thought the same thing for a long time. It seems as though Israel does not want to examine its own role in the situation it finds itself in--I found your comments about Israel's not want to examine its honest history even more illuminating.

actually the article is "dated" in terms of whats happening within our news/talk shows/paper suppliments etc. today.

and goes the extreme when making gross generalizations:

They have no real interest in a solution that goes to the core of their problem

simply because we disagree with the authors "core" he declare us ignorent.

just an article that simply doesnt relate to most of us in israel, which is why he doesnt get much press here

That'd be because as far as I'm aware, she's not a habitual article-writer, and she's a fellow Canberran. We're pretty obscure people, y'know. Just because something doesn't 'get much press' in Israel doesn't mean much at all. How can what she said not relate to most Israelis? That stuff is exactly what Ilan Pappe was talking about when he gave a lecture here last year. What is the core of the problem, then what is?

Violet...

two peoples who claim "rights to the same piece of real estate (and a pretty ugly one at that)" Each believes whether its because god gave it to them, or do to cultural/historical need each believes its theirs. Beliefs and culture are two aspects of the human identity that are pretty hard to shake.

In fact one example is that it took the holocaust to cause many european jews to change their cultural identity, and some still didnt do it. Hence you wont get a "right or wrong" in this war, neither side will give up their identity for the other-thats what its all about.

the question if it was "morally right to create israel"....shes right, we dont ask it, not out of denial, because we look at our history over the last 2,000+ years and especially WWII and have come to the obvious conclusion, that enough is enough. Just because she doesnt agree to our conclusion means were in denial?...nope

she mentions that we consider ourselves ''victims" thats a very simplistic attempt at understanding the israeli psych. That in itself shows how little she understands our inherent contradictions. Though we are the superiour force in our neighborhood, now, a short history ago it wasnt so, and with a couple zillion arabs screaming death to the jews, or show TV shows that we steal organs, etc the possibility that it will happen again is an aspect of our lives...so we can be past victim potential future victim even though now we are strong.

but the worse when she writes as if we dont understand what the palestenians want and need, as if we wish they would go away...that we do, just as they wish we would go away. But were far more realistic than she understands.....i think what bugs her is that we dont question our right to exist as a country in this part of the world.....we dont...not because god gave it to us, but because life isnt fair and this is where "fate put us"....maybe she should ask the romans why they tossed out my ancestors and started this whole thing?

JERUSALEM'S UGLY?
HA`MACHTESH?
HA CHERMON?
BANYAS?
EVEN TEL AVIV IS URBAN LY BEAUTIFUL ;)

it's one of the oddities that's often puzzled me - even if someone waved a magic wand and all the problems of the I/P were solved you STILL couldn't pay me enough to live on either side.

How much "beauty" can you derive from dust, sand and rocks, urban Tel Aviv looks like any other urban area.

Dunno maybe I'm spoilt with environmental choice, beaches, bays, rivers, rainforests, snowfields, deserts, temperate forests etc but the entire area covered by Israel and Palestine is pretty much dull and rocky

Tel Aviv?.....post modern industrial architecture built for the masses......
Jerusalem?....nice character, lots of funny people walking around (reminds me of a circus), but rome has it beat

as pretty as some spots maybe, they dont compare to the wonders of yellowstone, the mtns of Canda/switzerland, the high desert of Utah.

Banyas?....yea it nice, but there are a million "banyas" out there in any mtn valley.....

we tend to go "overboard' with the "wonders of israel".

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Djnn..its just god playing a joke on us (now if she had given us kuwait, or switerland....)

In a short generation and a half, the palestinian population will outnumber the Jewish population. No matter what else is being considered this fact will force their hand. It would be most wise if all parties understand this dynamic and trying to change it by contrivance will mean major upheaval. The conversation will have to turn given this reality.